John Oliver tried to make sense out of Donald Trump’s adulation of Vladimir Putin, when the favor clearly isn’t being returned. (Photo: ScreenCap)

John Oliver hilariously exposed Vladimir Putin’s dirty little secrets and questioned what Donald Trump hopes to get out of being “friends” on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight.” He seemed to ignite a fire under Trump trolls. Or, were they really Russians?

You can never tell on social media. That was one of the points of Oliver’s segment.

He zeroed in on why Trump is so obsessed with the autocrat and what exactly the president hopes to get out of his frequently professed desire to “get along.”

“It’s a bit weird that you’ve been objectively nicer to Vladimir Putin than you have to Meryl Streep,” Oliver said.

Oliver acknowledged that Putin is “not some comic book villain” in Russia. “To many, he’s a comic book hero. He’s genuinely popular there.”

And with good reason.

The Russian people are subjected to non-stop pro-Putin propaganda. One thing the Russian masses like about Putin is how he constantly denigrates the United States.

What Oliver demonstrated more clearly than anyone is how much Trump’s comments and campaign rhetoric dovetail so closely with the Kremlin’s propaganda line.

“Trump is basically the propagandist of Putin’s dreams, and who knows why he’s acting this way,” said Oliver. “Maybe he’s compromised; maybe he’s an idiot.”

The segment, which has been viewed almost 1.8 million times on YouTube, has drawn an inordinate amount of comments that echo the Trump-Putin line.

“I bet the Russian cyber troll brigade is working overtime for this one, and I love how they use all those phony Anglo names to criticize anything that is putting down their gassy master’s name,” wrote on commenter.

But as many Trump and Putin trolls as there were, it seemed just as many commenters called them out.

Oh man, there are so many Russians in these comments…,” wrote one. It’s all similar looking accounts saying the same kinds of things:

“‘John Oliver is so wrong about Putin. What about how terrible America is?” “America should want to get along with Russia. Why would anybody want war?'” ”

“This Crimea thing is so taken out of context. Don’t the people of Crimea have the right to decide what they want?”﻿

To which, Oliver added: “Since the President of the United States won’t stick up for this country, I will: America and Russia are not the fucking same.”

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Keith Girard is Editor and Publisher of TheImproper, New York City’s cutting edge arts, entertainment pop culture and lifestyle Web magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of Billboard magazine and a reporter for the Washington Post among other media positions.